The most important things is to be active. Like, always moving, always doing something. Never sit, unless forced. I've very active, but I'm one of those guys who can order a pizza, eat the whole thing, and really not notice.

Excercise is ok, but people tend to do it, then sit around the rest of the day, which kinda ruins it. Find a sport, get active, stay active, and you'll lose the pounds without noticing.

Adding to that, I'd recommend finding a sport to play, for example tennis, taekwondo, volleyball, bandminton, squash etc. or just plain jogging. Hitting the weights only comes in once you've established yourself on a stable diet in my opinion.

However, the nutshell remains: if you want to lose weight, you need to eat less than you consume.

I have been thinking of taekwondo for a while, actually since I was a kid. But isnt it too late to start martial arts at the age of 20? :P

Stop drinking soda most of the time. If you do have soda, try for one a day max. It's terrible for you. Good alternatives can be mineral waters like Perrier. Sugared drinks like Gatorade can be bad too, unless you just had an intense workout. I opt for skim or water most of the time.

Eat whole grains over white bread. Whole wheat bread. High-fiber cereals (Like Honey Nut Cheerios). Also less sugar! Whole grains and other high fiber, high protein foods will keep you feeling fuller. Eating lots of vegetables like broccoli, raw spinach leaves, beans, etc. will also help you feel better later in the day.

Also, start reading nutrition labels. If something is high in fat (Like a burger with 30% daily fat or something), don't eat it! Or do it but eat healthier the rest of the day. Obviously calories matter, too. Random bottles of soda can have many calories. Even a granola bar, depending on the brand, can be 90-200 calories. (Frozen pizzas are actually really bad for you. Look at the nutrition label, and you'll see high in calories, fat, and sodium).

Don't just eat junk even if you're not hungry. Listen to your body for when and what to eat. Chewing gum can help delay eating. Drinking water can help you feel full for longer. And then of course food will be much more tastier if you wait until you're actually hungry.

Also, start exercising. Start by trying basic jogging on a treadmill and some easy upper-body exercises. Taekwando sounds good! I think plenty of people don't start until they're adults. I used to do it at around 13. There were a lot of middle-agers there. Maybe combine it with running on the side? Jogging is such a good calorie burner.

Lastly, try chewing sugar-free gum after most meals. It'll keep you from continuing to eat.

i used to weigh 280, plus in only 5'7-5'9. all i did was jog/speed walk 5-7 days a week for about 3 1/2-4 miles, did pushups and crunches every day while still eating wendys(3-4 chicken sandwiches from dollar menu) 1-2 times a week and lost 85 pounds in about 8 months. i almost never lifted weights besides the 20 lb. dumbbells for my upper body. replace the soda with water(good way to stop your hunger for a while also). the people that say "stop eating this and that" either dont know or forgot how hard it is for someone to stop. the best you can do is to control it by eating less of it and slowly weening yourself off of it. like i said i still ate wendys but instead of before where i would buy 4 burgers, 2 chicken every other day, i went to 3-4 chicken sandwiches once or maybe twice a week.

I have been thinking of taekwondo for a while, actually since I was a kid. But isnt it too late to start martial arts at the age of 20? :P

I started at 18 and I'm doing great!

---------- Post added 2013-02-03 at 09:43 PM ----------

Originally Posted by warex00

I'll have to thank everybody for the constructive feedback But to get into abit more detail. How should I "diet" I mean. Atm Im like:

Dinners from last night / sandwich for breakfast with a coke

Usually some warm food for lunch, possibly another sandwich.

Then dinner might be frozen pizza(or generally frozen products) or some pasta dish.

then for (lack of better word) evening meal I eat like a plate with dinner if I had more.

How should I change this? When should I eat and what type of food?

I eat almost everything except fish.

I'll tell you what I eat.

During semesters I have to wake up early, at around 7 am ever day. I make myself a bowl of cornflakes with yogurt (I don't like milk), because it's light food and has the energetic value you need in the morning. I usually eat an apple afterwards.

When I get back home in around 1-2hrs time, I make myself eggs on olive oil without the yolk and eat bread alongside it (I do lots of taekwondo, a bit of gymnastics and tennis) so I need carbs and protein, as well as vitamins and all that jazz.

Sometimes I make myself a raspberry shake that includes the raspberries (shocking!), yogurt and bananas.

This is followed by a lunch meal, usually consisting of a soup with noodles or vegetables, potatoes/pasta with various meat and sauce combinations.

In the mid afternoon I tend to drink a glass or two of yogurt.

And in the evening I like to eat bread with cheese, maybe with a sausage and top it off with curd.

And I only drink water during these meals, with the occasional kompot.

When you look in the gym and see those guys who are really built and say "Wow, that took some real EFFORT for them to get that big".

Well it's exactly the same when you see guys who are really obese, it takes real EFFORT to consume that many calories and maintain that weight.

Your BMR for a stationary lifestyle is 2610 calories, this is a lot of food. Cut this by 20% and you'll lose the weight, drink water, do cardio exercises and get your 8 hour a night sleep. Continue to recalculate your BMR as you lose weight.

When you look in the gym and see those guys who are really built and say "Wow, that took some real EFFORT for them to get that big".

Well it's exactly the same when you see guys who are really obese, it takes real EFFORT to consume that many calories and maintain that weight.

Your BMR for a stationary lifestyle is 2610 calories, this is a lot of food. Cut this by 20% and you'll lose the weight, drink water, do cardio exercises and get your 8 hour a night sleep. Continue to recalculate your BMR as you lose weight.

Losing weight fast isn't good for you. If you drop your weight fast, it's more likely for it to pile back on. It's a marathon, not a sprint.

Saying that, fix your diet first. Eating right is the biggest part of losing weight, exercise comes second. Focus on your food for a few weeks before starting heavy exercise. Any increase in activity level will get you results if you combine it with eating less and more healthy. Replace anything white with the brown equivalent (white bread and pasta to wholemeal, white rice to brown and so on) to get better carbs in, drink plenty of water (don't drink soda at all, even diet ones) and the weight will start dropping. The first week or two will be water weight so the loss will be higher, so don't get discouraged when the scales start showing smaller losses every week.

I wanna tell you a short little story about me. I've recently started working out and stuff. I cut soda and candy in the weekdays (It's not hard, really. Just drink water when you're craving cola)

Anyway, to the story. I was out in the mall with some guys, we'd just bought some books and shit for college, and we were heading to Burger King. Now at this point I'd already started living more healthy than before, so I was standing in the section that has books on diets and fitness, and I thought "hm maybe I should get one of these and start a diet".
Then it struck me, how stupid it would be to buy that book, because I already knew what it said: "Don't eat unhealthy", seeing how I was already on my way to get a calorie bomb at Burger King's, I realized how hypocritical it would be to buy the book, if I'd already decided not to follow it's advice.

Bottom line is, either you do something or you dont. No half measures. Cut sodas and candy on weekdays, cut down on it on weekends (That sounds like a half measure, but damnit you have to live, don't you xD)

Buy a pair of hand weights and a floor mat for situps and stuff or go to the gym... or both, that's what I do.

Exercise is largely irrelevant for fat loss and in many cases actually hurts your attempts to lose weight. If I need to get more detailed as to why, I will, because I know people will jump in here pretending that hitting the gym or going on 40 mile runs every day are somehow crucial elements to fat loss. They aren't.

Cut out the junk food. No sugar - no candy, no cokes, no cakes, no flour, no any of that shit. Do that and you'll lose fat, quickly, and be far healthier. It's really very easy.

That's actually wrong, very wrong, Excercise is crucial, just as diet is, You can eat fuck all and do no exercise and you still won't be healthy or fit, Alot of people make huge changes to their weight by instead of getting a bus cycling, or jogging, it's also good because it's excellent for moral, you feel alot better once you've done things like that and it spurs you on to do more

Basically, Diet is important ofcourse, But so is exercise, just cutting out junk food won't get you healthy if you're that overweight, and it's stupid to asuume you would, different things work for different people, But cut out the junk food and start with light exercise and you'l be fine, remember the biggest problem if you actualy start to lose weight is losing it to quickly and not giving your skin the time to bounce back because then you have a whole other problem

ignore carbs and calories worry about fat intake, and burn off more than you take in.

I have a terrible diet, i eat junk and am still in good shape because of the sheer amount of cardio i do. For most people there is no need to diet unless you have an utterly terrible metabolism. My cardio which burns ~half a stone in a week, is 3 mile jog 2 mile bike 10 5-10 mins of high intensity running ( 1 min fast jog -> 1 min sprint -> repeat until dying) This cardio makes you lose alot of weight fast.

Sure dieting will help a bit, but no where near as much as actual hard at it cardio.

Originally Posted by Makamoka

You not gamer, you go play your boring "Real life" with crappy graphics'n stuff! You cant even do Quests, dungeons and BGs in "IRL" :s

If you have a smartphone get this on it, http://www.myfitnesspal.com/ ... It will help a lot, put it in before you eat it, it will help you decide if you really want those extra calories/carbs from the Hershey's bar. It also hast most things in a searchable format so you don't have to look it up.

Eat healthy (and I mean it), run, a lot, run till you feel like dying. Rest and repeat. Sweat is fat crying. Don't stop, never give up. Get good nights sleep. There is no quick way to lose weight other than than sticking at exercising

Jogging when you have overweight is the worst you can do. You will destroy your knees and feets with that. Go some biking, or better, swimming

And beside that. I lost 20kg without sports. How? Did not eat things with much sugar. Was easy and really fast

And 0,5kg per week is really good, think about that. Half a year, ~13 kg less and you should be doing fine

You didnt lose the weight by eliminating sugar ( although it did help ). You lost weight because you were in a calorie deficit.

Originally Posted by rzy

ignore carbs and calories worry about fat intake, and burn off more than you take in.

I have a terrible diet, i eat junk and am still in good shape because of the sheer amount of cardio i do. For most people there is no need to diet unless you have an utterly terrible metabolism. My cardio which burns ~half a stone in a week, is 3 mile jog 2 mile bike 10 5-10 mins of high intensity running ( 1 min fast jog -> 1 min sprint -> repeat until dying) This cardio makes you lose alot of weight fast.

Sure dieting will help a bit, but no where near as much as actual hard at it cardio.

Dont worry about fat intake, just count calories ( yes i realize that fat has alot of calories, but you need fat. ).

And diet is one of the most important things when it comes to fitness. If you want good results.

Firstly I wanna appologize if these types of threads are forbidden or somthing, but im kinda in need of help asap.

So, im 19 years old, soon 20. About 100kg / 220 lbs. I drink about 1-2 coke's every day, and a generally unhealthy lifestyle. Including candy etc in the weekdays.

However, I've decided to turn things around, and get fit and possibly start working out ( ripped ) as a futuristic goal.

What I need help with is. How can I loose weight efficently? I need to burn those pounds off asap. Im willing to go far as to workout and quite far within diet aswell. Considering I've been drinking / eating unhealthy all day long for years, I think its gonna be a hard change. But I wanna give it a go.

TL;DR: I'm fat and I need to lose weight asap. How to do it?

Any help would be deeply appreciated

- Warex

Hello Warex,

I usually don't post on MMO but for you, I decided to.

So, to give you a bit of a background into myself, I was a top skilled martial artist for about 15 years (started at 5, finished at 20) with several titles under my belt. Now, when I stopped training, subconciously I still ate the way I normally would, which means, BOOM! Fatty mc fat fat after a few years, I was 148 Kg, which is about 23.5 stone. Thats heavy shit!

Now, I tried the atkins, there is alot of negative stigma around it, its all bullshit, NO it does not increase your cholestoral! for one. go to www.atkins.com, DO YOUR RESEARCH ON IT FIRST! and make sure you make a "plan" on what you are going to eat. Most importanly, stay away from sugar of any kind.

I would recommending checking out the "all you need to know about atkins" first also as this will bring up some pros and cons. Regular blood tests (10 euro for a blood sugar level [which should be super low] blood pressure [important] and cholestoral test) it is worth it.

I went from 148 Kg to about 105 Kg in less than 6 months.

PM me if you want any more advice.

This diet was done purley on food only, there was no increased exercise or anything.

There is so much misinformation and stupidity in this thread its unbelievable. First of all, dont listen to anybody in this thread whatsoever (even if there are many completely legit replies here with good solid advice, you dont have the knowledge to differentiate between the good and the bad ones).

Seek the help of a professional trainer etc. about what, when and how to eat along with what exercises to do and when. There's a difference between eating/exercising well and eating/exercising _right_. Why go for 60% efficiency when you can go for 80-90?

The only advice I will give you (you should hopefully be able to put faith in it since I am an educated professional trainer) is Tom Venuto's book: "Burn the fat, feed the muscle". Its one of Tom's many stellar works, simple to understand and easy to pick up.